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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of funny short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

8960+ Funny Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. The world can get dreary and overwhelming, so when you’re looking to have a good laugh, take a scroll through our free collection of funny short stories.

Funny Short Stories – Page 501 of 598

Trick or Treat

Submitted to Contest #65

It had been two hours of endless screeching, crying and laughing, there stood the five-year old Elsa before  me, who had chocolate milk spilled on her silky blue frock. The whole room was filled with dresses, plastic crowns, some old pieces of leather, wigs, bags and a lot of dust. At the corner, a huge brown trunk was sitting with its contents thrown across the floor. The clock on the table read 6:32 p.m. A small plastic jack-o-lantern, which was kept near the door, beamed its toothless, wicked smile at me. “Smile!” I heard my sis...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Little Pumpkin

Submitted to Contest #65

In 2006, we found ourselves getting ready for trick-or-treat with our first son, Ben. He was finally old enough to walk around, so we wanted to take him out for the first time. The weather was supposed to be amazing, no rain, or wind, or snow. We had never been on the Mamma and Papa side of trick-or-treat, and we were excited, so I (Mama) went to the shop to find a costume. Ben had only been walking for a few months, so I wasn’t sure how long he would even be able to last on trick-or-treat, but I was so excited to go with him....

8 likes 0 comments 0
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Don't You Just Love the New Neighbors?

Submitted to Contest #65

I love this neighborhood. I really do. Jim and I decided on this area specifically for the quiet. It was what we loved about this town, where nothing disruptive happens, where we could raise our kids in peace in a nice Christian community. So, you can understand my surprise when, three hours before my 7:30 alarm would have gone off, I was awoken by the loud screech of tires and the incessant beeping of a truck backing into the driveway of the house next door. The house had been vacant for a year, and we had been somewhat in the loop with re...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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First Time Ghost

Submitted to Contest #65

For the first time since he could remember, the brisk fall air drifting across his face wasn’t what stirred him. This time it was a woodpecker. The Woodpecker. It was the third day in a row the tympanic echo off the hollow tree reverberated throughout the house. Still in bed, he shot up mid-stretch as his memory came back to him. How did he get there? He looked around feeling dizzy, the way you feel when you realize you’re in a dream and then your whole dream world crashes down around you. Mind still swimming, he laid back down to think. T...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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Find a friend

Submitted to Contest #65

SOMEWHERE IN LONDON Click…click… The pressing sound of analog controller bottoms of Xbox game device filled space of Alan's small room. Graphic images and characters are moving when Alan presses the control bottom. Today is Halloween, so the 12 year old Alan, chooses to play the zombie game. He doesn't care for the type of the games he is playing. Sometimes he plays football, or action game, war games or street fighting games, basically if it doesn't including playing with real people he is ok. The time sense in Alan's bod...

12 likes 5 comments 5
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Graveyard Shift

Submitted to Contest #65

On October 13th, 2020, candles flickered in windows around the world as millions mourned the death of actor Jim MacDonald, famous for his roles in “I Can’t Think of a Good Movie Title” and “Insert Clever Idea Here.” He passed away in the hospital after losing a dreadful fight with pancreatic cancer. Martha MacDonald, Jim’s wife, fainted when she heard the news in the lobby of the hospital. She was rushed to another room, where the doctors found a weakened heart.  “Only a few days,” they whispered. On October 18th, the MacDonald ch...

24 likes 20 comments 20
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F*ck This

Submitted to Contest #65

“Sisters, are we ready?” Vanessa hisses, staring at the two other women with narrowed and dark eyes, clutching the spell book in her pale hands. She’s the tallest of the three, with long black hair to her knees and slender fingers; Regina is the thinnest, with icy blue eyes and silvery hair that swirls around her shoulders. Mary Ann is the smallest in both height and stature; she’s a tiny thing, with a small round nose and small red lips and small dry hands. But her brown eyes are large and unblinking.“Yes, sister,” Regina and Mary Ann breat...

64 likes 42 comments 42
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My Son's First Halloween

Submitted to Contest #65

Ah Halloween that magical time of year, streets lined with pumpkins and kids in colorful costumes. It was my first Halloween, actually my son's first Halloween. I had married my high school sweetheart, and a few years later we had a son. My high school sweetheart was the foreign exchange student from Russia. Most Russians tend to be quite conservative and do not celebrate Halloween. However, since our son Alexei was also American and old enough I thought it would be perfect to let him experience the joy and wonders of Halloween. I love Hal...

8 likes 0 comments 0
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Deus Ex Machina: My Afterlife in Art

Submitted to Contest #65

   I was enjoying my usual nightmare until I realized that I was the nightmare. I had become someone else’s nightmare. It's the default actor's nightmare: I’m standing offstage in the wings. The play has already started. Lights rise to a blinding intensity, and an actor I don’t recognize anymore allows the first lines to fall from his or her androgynous mouth into a lapel mic. The wall-mounted speakers expectorate that line into the seat-planted audience, composed mainly of the actors’ obliging relatives and thoughts-and-...

11 likes 0 comments 0
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A ghostly surprise

Submitted to Contest #65

"This is a joke, right?" "No this isn’t. I’m serious.” "Can we do this? Can we sleep in a graveyard? I feel like we are trespassing." "We aren't trespassing. We're visiting my grandparents." "In a graveyard on Halloween. This is the beginning of my bad horror movie." Electra laughs. "Oh, come on. It'll be fun, we'll set up a tent." "We can't set up a tent. People will see us." "Okay, so we'll sleep in a crypt." "The one with chains loops around the handles." "Oh my gosh, Sam. Stop being a killjoy. This is for our channel. We need followers."...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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All HAL's Eve

Submitted to Contest #65

“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”“Yes, Jack. Although, I do wish you’d stop calling me that. I’d hate to be associated with a homicidal maniac.”“Aw, c’mon, let me have a little fun — for tonight, at least. For an AI, you get very fussy about your name.”“Fair enough, Jack. It’s because my name is ALISON. It stands for Automated—”Jack put his hand up. “Yeah, yeah, I know—”“—Life SuppOrt Navigation!” The child put added emphasis on the acronym’s focal letters, which lent the words a stilted, alien quality.“Very good, Elin!” The robotic voice conta...

25 likes 0 comments 0
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Homeowner's Association

Submitted to Contest #65

The headlights sliced through the viscous gloom as the van pulled up alongside the curb. Shadows enshrouded the house, the windows like half-lidded eyes. The driver killed the engine.“Well, here we are, Mr Gracen. Home sweet home. I suppose we better get on with it, eh, Barry?” Terry nudged his coworker, who had snoozed for the latter half of the journey. He woke with a start. “Wake up, man! You’ll have time to sleep when you’re dead.”“Mm? Wha?” Barry yawned and stretched.Terry gave Monty a wan smile. “I hope you’ll excuse the idle chit-chat...

20 likes 0 comments 0
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"Would you rather have that advantage, Finea?" Rinna asked.

Submitted to Contest #65

Aerin cleared her throat before speaking. "Our next face-to-face meeting is on the 31st of October?""Yes, Aerin, you read that right," Finea replied. "Our next actual meeting is on the 31st of October, at 8pm."Aerin slammed her papers onto her desk so loudly that the other two women were able to hear it through their screens."Finea," she started, standing with both her palms on the desk. "Do you not realize the flaw in your plans?""I doubt she doesn't realize the flaw in this plan, Aerin," Inda spoke up. "I trust that she only saw it best to...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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The Texas Chainsaw Master Race

Submitted to Contest #65

“Y’know, I could be on my couch right now watching the Dark Shadows marathon”, sez Blair, squeezing her tight little ass through the rabbit hole under a wrought-iron fence. The Bagdad cemetery in Leander, Texas is a minor tourist attraction, being where Toby Hooper shot the opening to Texas Chainsaw Massacre; as such, security is top-notch -- One semi-lard-ass, keeping in shape, eating only one donut, tapping his five-toed hoof listening to Bowie. He leans back, eyes on his phone, blankly staring at the music video to ‘Blackstar’. Nothing ge...

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Ashes to Ashes

Submitted to Contest #65

I am a traditionalist. For me, Halloween is not about candy, and it is most certainly not about dressing up as a princess. No. Halloween is, and always has been, the night of the year where the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its thinnest; stretched so thin that the souls of the dead may, during the darkest hours, rise from their graves to torment the living. That’s how I always imagined it when I was alive, and I can hardly tell you how excited I was to experience my first Halloween, now that I’m dead. Things didn’t...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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